chapter 1 - obey

© 2020 SLDB

“Choose Obesity”

Never had such an ambitious government campaign been so thorough, so effective.

At the time I had been a young professional. As a 25-year-old living in Los Angeles, my blonde hair and blue eyes gave me the definitive Barbie look that I worked tirelessly to maintain. My cute 5’3” 115-pound frame was damn near perfect. Guys were dying to be with me and the select few I associated with were at my beck and call.

And then those two words happened.

“Choose Obesity”

I’ll never forget. I was driving into work one morning when news of a new government initiative came through the radio. The president had determined that in order to make our country great again, all the women would need to get fat and lazy.

I laughed.

Just another crazy idea from an unhinged president. People joked about it at the office. I mean, who wouldn’t? Choose obesity? I’m hot as fuck… why would I turn myself into a disgusting slob?

The day came and went as usual but when I awoke the next day the world had changed. I woke up with my phone buzzing with alerts, each alert simply urging me to choose obesity. The ads were on every platform and seemed to run nonstop. Billboards across town showed overweight, happy women stuffing themselves with the words “choose obesity” printed above. On the drive into work I turned on the car radio and every single commercial break was the exact same advertisement: a woman with a distinctly deep and husky voice talking about how amazing her fat life was and how women have a responsibility to become just as fat and happy for the good of their country. Annoyed with the radio ads, I switched to a podcast only to find the exact same ad playing across all of my favorite shows.

The message was everywhere. It was inescapable. “Choose obesity.” I must have heard it more than one hundred times that day. It was all I could think about.

For the first couple of days my friends and I all cracked jokes at the silly campaign, but secretly I had to admit that I felt oddly hungry. I don’t know what drove me to do it, but after four days of listening to the campaign I swung by the local burger joint and devoured an entire double cheeseburger with a large side of fries. My stomach felt so bloated as i polished off the last of my meal and a sense of embarrassment took over as I realized how much of a pig I must of looked like, but as I looked around I only found other girls just like me stuffing their faces.

What was happening? This didn’t make sense. How could some silly advertisements actually change our behavior? I told myself that it was a onetime thing but eating fatty and greasy foods quickly became the norm for me as my body grew to crave more. I have no idea why my diet changed so quickly, but my body seemed to yearn for more food with each passing day.

Three weeks in and I could already feel the effects of the campaign on my waistline as my newly accumulated fat made my pants uncomfortably snug. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the scale though… I was too afraid of what the scale might reveal.

I got in my car again for work and had to brush aside all the wrappers as my cushiony rear-end took a seat. That Monday was the first time I realized that I wasn’t the only one at work behaving differently. All the other women seemed to be wearing loose clothing as they tried to hide their expanding forms. We were all growing rapidly together, we were just too embarrassed to admit it.

The days came and went as the advertisements played relentlessly. We no longer joked about the campaign, we just pretended like everything was normal while our bodies expanded with each passing meal. My abs had been concealed by a soft layer of fresh pudge, but I still couldn’t bring myself to weigh my fattened body. I wasn’t ready to admit that I had fallen prey to their propaganda.